California Attorney General Scores Another Win in Plastics Fight

The Plastics Industry Association lost its latest attempt to avoid California’s plastics recycling deception probe.

Judge Amit P. Mehta denied the group’s renewed motion for preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order against California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D), according to a memorandum opinion and order filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The association failed to show likely success on the merits of its claims and in linking Bonta to the court’s jurisdiction, the order says.

The decision marks another win for Bonta. This is the second time Mehta has denied the association’s attempt to escape the attorney general’s investigative subpoena for materials related to what Bonta called a “decades-long campaign of deception surrounding the recyclability of plastic.”

Bonta also recently sued ExxonMobil Corp. for the same alleged public deception around plastics recycling.

The Plastics Industry Association’s amended complaint and motion largely restated arguments from its first attempt, aside from employing a few new strategies to link Bonta to Washington’s jurisdiction, Mehta said. Changes included a claim that Bonta served the association a document in person in Washington, D.C., via a hired process server.

But the court’s reasoning for denying the group’s first motion still applies, Mehta said. The fact of personal service “doesn’t change the result,” and the association still hasn’t demonstrated that the subpoenaed records retain First Amendment privilege, he said.

The records at issue were housed at the Hagley Library in Delaware until recently.

“By making those records available to researchers and others without meaningful restrictions, Plastics has not preserved the privilege it now asserts,” Mehta said.

Bonta last month withdrew a similar investigative subpoena for another plastics group, the American Chemistry Council. He asked the court Oct. 8 to dismiss both groups’ motions for preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order.

Keller Heckman LLP and Cooper & Kirk PLLC represent the Plastics Industry Association.

The case is Plastics Indus. Ass’n v. Bonta, D.D.C., No. 1:24-cv-01542, 11/6/24.